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for Jesse Talbot
1806? - 1879
Jesse Talbot is something of a mystery. His birth date is variously given as 1806 or 1807 in standard biographical references, but without indication of a source for the dating. Nothing is known of him before 1838 when he was represented in the National Academy annual exhibition with a portrait and a landscape. The following year another portrait and landscape by Talbot were included in the inaugural exhibition of the Apollo Association. Over the next two decades, through 1860, his work was rarely missing from an Academy annual. Through 1848 he was liberally patronized by the Apollo Association and its successor, the American Art-Union. In 1858 and 1859 the Cosmopolitan Art-Union (based in Sandusky, Ohio, and not subject to state law against gambling which had done in the American Art-Union) acquired, and promoted a number of his paintings. The Academy and the two Art-Unions are the only venues in which Talbot's work is known to have been exhibited. An overwhelming majority of the canvases he showed at the Academy were credited as loans by their purchasers, suggesting Talbot did not lack for patronage, and that he did not have a substantial body of unsold work needing to be promoted through wide exhibition.
After 1840 only one portrait was among his submissions to the Academy. Instead, he appears to have had ambitions to be recognized as a painter of historical landscape. He took his subjects from the Hudson valley, the Adirondacks, the Lake Champlain area of New York State and Vermont, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and occasionally from eastern Pennsylvania and the Cumberland Valley of Virginia. But along with titles that suggest relatively straightforward depictions of the scenery, were imaginative and literary themes, such as The Happy Valley, from Rasselas, the Prince Meditating His Escape, shown in the Academy annual of 1841; Indian Hunting Grounds, in the annual of 1842; Christian and the Cross, Pilgrim's Progress, in the annual of 1847 and acquired and shown by the American Art-Union the same year; The Departure of Christian from the Palace, Called Beautiful, in the annual of 1849; and The Chieftain's Last Gaze, in the annual of 1859.
Initially, at least, Talbot seem to have attained some success. In 1843 a writer for the The New World thought him a peer of the foremost American practitioners of landscape painters of the time.
Jesse Talbot has lately finished two beautiful landscapes. The best of them is a view of Buttermilk Falls, near Albany--one of the most charming of subjects, and executed with great truth, and is a bold, masterly manner. Mr. Talbot deserves the reputation he is rapidly acquiring, for he has probably labored with greater energy and attention than any other of our artists, for the past five years. As yet Cole, Huntington, Durand, Fisher, Doughty and Talbot, are the only landscape painters of any note in this country, and some of these are about ceasing to prosecute this department of art. There is room for more, even though the times are hard, and a love of painting quite limited, in our country; and we hope that more of our young men will aspire to the fame of a Claude, a Wilson, or a Cole.
From 1840 into 1843 Talbot had a studio in the New York University building, the most prominent artists' address before the erection of the Tenth Street Studio building. From 1844 into 1847 he gave his address as Paterson, New Jersey, although he presumable maintained a strong presence in New York, or he would not have been eligible for election to the Academy in 1845. From 1848 through 1860 he had various New York addresses.
The Cosmopolitan Art Journal, house organ of the Cosmopolitan Art-Union, and thus not a disinterested observer, described at some length what Talbot was working on in 1858 (the year the Art-Union had invested most heavily in his studies and large landscapes).
A series of large pictures, illustrative of sacred history, is a new feature in American art, and the great work of this character, now employing the pencil of Mr. Talbot, will be none the less welcome on account of its novelty. The tenth chapter of Genesis supplies the artist with his subject, or rather his starting point; for, although the division of the earth among the sons of Noah, mentioned in this chapter, suggests the subject, the period illustrated by the series extends from a time anterior tot h death of the patriarch, until after the coming of Christ; and presents to our view the progress of human civilization up to that epoch.
The first scene is laid in Asia, at the time of the foundation of the Assyrian empire; the second, in Egypt, when Egypt was in her glory, or rather while she was being shorn of her glory by the invading armies of the King of Babylon, as foretold by the Hebrew prophets. The third scene is laid in Greece, at a time when Greece had attained to her highest state of civilization and refinement.
These pictures are at once clear and luminous in color, bold and free in design, and firm in execution; while in the higher requisites of works of this class they are strikingly impressive. Their completion is looked forward to with interest, by all who have been permitted a private inspection of the artist's long labors. That they will prove a great triumph, appears to be the opinion of the best critics.
This ambitious cycle, reminiscent of Thomas Cole's The Course of Empire, is not known to have been completed.
From 1861 through 1864--the period of the Civil War--nothing is heard or seen of Talbot in Academy exhibitions, but his landscapes returned in the annuals of 1865 and 1866. Thereafter, he was represent only in the annuals of 1869, 1873 giving his address as Brooklyn, and 1876 by which time he was living in Roundout, New York.
Talbot apparently still had some following in the 1870s. A broadside exists, probably promoting an exhibition of "Two Landscapes by Jesse Talbot," Hunting-Grounds and Mountain Sunset. It reprints two commentaries described as from issues of the American Art Journal of 1875 and 1876. The Journal writer on Mountain Sunset was clearly a partisan.
One of our finest native artists, of the veteran legion and one who has not deteriorated, is Mr. Jesse Talbot, whose charming mellow landscapes gave him a high and well-earned reputation for his fine conceptions and original treatment, years ago. We miss this artist almost as regularly as the earth complete its course around the sun, and then he returns to the metropolis with a new child of his genius, which is invariably more subtle in its refinement than his former productions, and proves him to be progressive in his art. In Talbot's pictures there is always perceptible both poetical and artistic invention, two qualities invariably united in the true son of genius . . . . The subject is a landscape seemingly inspired by the grandeur of the Adirondack region, and somewhat idealized. The water in the foreground is exquisitely painted, and the group of thirsty deer are well drawn and lifelike . . . . It is a picture that would grace the walls of the finest gallery in the land.
But such a response to Talbot's by then very old fashioned art was presumably rare. On his death several years later, the Academy Council found it necessary to vote a contribution of $50 to help defray Talbot funeral expenses. That spring, in his presidential address given at the Academy annual meeting, Daniel Huntington had this to say:
Let us be thankful to the Giver of Life that the list of the Academicians has not been broken this year by death. We lost one of our oldest Associates: Jesse Talbot--an amiable man of refined disposition whose first brilliant promise as an Amateur was not fulfilled in later years from the lack of severe discipline and the attempt to leap to great results without the slow and certain advance which leave no unconquered enemy in the rear.
After 1840 only one portrait was among his submissions to the Academy. Instead, he appears to have had ambitions to be recognized as a painter of historical landscape. He took his subjects from the Hudson valley, the Adirondacks, the Lake Champlain area of New York State and Vermont, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and occasionally from eastern Pennsylvania and the Cumberland Valley of Virginia. But along with titles that suggest relatively straightforward depictions of the scenery, were imaginative and literary themes, such as The Happy Valley, from Rasselas, the Prince Meditating His Escape, shown in the Academy annual of 1841; Indian Hunting Grounds, in the annual of 1842; Christian and the Cross, Pilgrim's Progress, in the annual of 1847 and acquired and shown by the American Art-Union the same year; The Departure of Christian from the Palace, Called Beautiful, in the annual of 1849; and The Chieftain's Last Gaze, in the annual of 1859.
Initially, at least, Talbot seem to have attained some success. In 1843 a writer for the The New World thought him a peer of the foremost American practitioners of landscape painters of the time.
Jesse Talbot has lately finished two beautiful landscapes. The best of them is a view of Buttermilk Falls, near Albany--one of the most charming of subjects, and executed with great truth, and is a bold, masterly manner. Mr. Talbot deserves the reputation he is rapidly acquiring, for he has probably labored with greater energy and attention than any other of our artists, for the past five years. As yet Cole, Huntington, Durand, Fisher, Doughty and Talbot, are the only landscape painters of any note in this country, and some of these are about ceasing to prosecute this department of art. There is room for more, even though the times are hard, and a love of painting quite limited, in our country; and we hope that more of our young men will aspire to the fame of a Claude, a Wilson, or a Cole.
From 1840 into 1843 Talbot had a studio in the New York University building, the most prominent artists' address before the erection of the Tenth Street Studio building. From 1844 into 1847 he gave his address as Paterson, New Jersey, although he presumable maintained a strong presence in New York, or he would not have been eligible for election to the Academy in 1845. From 1848 through 1860 he had various New York addresses.
The Cosmopolitan Art Journal, house organ of the Cosmopolitan Art-Union, and thus not a disinterested observer, described at some length what Talbot was working on in 1858 (the year the Art-Union had invested most heavily in his studies and large landscapes).
A series of large pictures, illustrative of sacred history, is a new feature in American art, and the great work of this character, now employing the pencil of Mr. Talbot, will be none the less welcome on account of its novelty. The tenth chapter of Genesis supplies the artist with his subject, or rather his starting point; for, although the division of the earth among the sons of Noah, mentioned in this chapter, suggests the subject, the period illustrated by the series extends from a time anterior tot h death of the patriarch, until after the coming of Christ; and presents to our view the progress of human civilization up to that epoch.
The first scene is laid in Asia, at the time of the foundation of the Assyrian empire; the second, in Egypt, when Egypt was in her glory, or rather while she was being shorn of her glory by the invading armies of the King of Babylon, as foretold by the Hebrew prophets. The third scene is laid in Greece, at a time when Greece had attained to her highest state of civilization and refinement.
These pictures are at once clear and luminous in color, bold and free in design, and firm in execution; while in the higher requisites of works of this class they are strikingly impressive. Their completion is looked forward to with interest, by all who have been permitted a private inspection of the artist's long labors. That they will prove a great triumph, appears to be the opinion of the best critics.
This ambitious cycle, reminiscent of Thomas Cole's The Course of Empire, is not known to have been completed.
From 1861 through 1864--the period of the Civil War--nothing is heard or seen of Talbot in Academy exhibitions, but his landscapes returned in the annuals of 1865 and 1866. Thereafter, he was represent only in the annuals of 1869, 1873 giving his address as Brooklyn, and 1876 by which time he was living in Roundout, New York.
Talbot apparently still had some following in the 1870s. A broadside exists, probably promoting an exhibition of "Two Landscapes by Jesse Talbot," Hunting-Grounds and Mountain Sunset. It reprints two commentaries described as from issues of the American Art Journal of 1875 and 1876. The Journal writer on Mountain Sunset was clearly a partisan.
One of our finest native artists, of the veteran legion and one who has not deteriorated, is Mr. Jesse Talbot, whose charming mellow landscapes gave him a high and well-earned reputation for his fine conceptions and original treatment, years ago. We miss this artist almost as regularly as the earth complete its course around the sun, and then he returns to the metropolis with a new child of his genius, which is invariably more subtle in its refinement than his former productions, and proves him to be progressive in his art. In Talbot's pictures there is always perceptible both poetical and artistic invention, two qualities invariably united in the true son of genius . . . . The subject is a landscape seemingly inspired by the grandeur of the Adirondack region, and somewhat idealized. The water in the foreground is exquisitely painted, and the group of thirsty deer are well drawn and lifelike . . . . It is a picture that would grace the walls of the finest gallery in the land.
But such a response to Talbot's by then very old fashioned art was presumably rare. On his death several years later, the Academy Council found it necessary to vote a contribution of $50 to help defray Talbot funeral expenses. That spring, in his presidential address given at the Academy annual meeting, Daniel Huntington had this to say:
Let us be thankful to the Giver of Life that the list of the Academicians has not been broken this year by death. We lost one of our oldest Associates: Jesse Talbot--an amiable man of refined disposition whose first brilliant promise as an Amateur was not fulfilled in later years from the lack of severe discipline and the attempt to leap to great results without the slow and certain advance which leave no unconquered enemy in the rear.
